Positive psychology is essentially the science of happiness and wellbeing, but also includes the study of the aspects of life, including suffering, that make it worth living. It examines the meaning of life, the welfare of society, and the methods of increasing life satisfaction.

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happyproject.in/positive-psychology
Positive psychology is the study of how human beings prosper in the face of adversity.
— Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000
While traditional psychology focuses on psychological diseases, positive psychology
studies happiness and things that make us happy.
The core topics of positive psychology include happiness, wellbeing, resilience, flow, and
mindfulness, among others.
As a branch of psychology, it debuted in 1998 when Martin Seligman gave his
presidential address to the American Psychological Association (APA).
What Is Positive Psychology
Positive psychology is essentially the science of happiness and wellbeing, but also includes
the study of the aspects of life, including suffering, that make it worth living. It examines
the meaning of life, the welfare of society, and the methods of increasing life satisfaction.
Positive psychology (PP) is the study of the good life, the positive facets of human
experience, and what makes people flourish and life most worth living. The field began
when eminent psychologists sought to identify and enhance the human strengths and
virtues that help individuals and communities to prosper and lead healthier and happier
lives.
What is positive psychology?
What Is Positive Psychology: PERMA To PP2.0 (Courses + PDF)

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Initially, positive psychology focused on positive states, positive traits, and positive
institutions (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000):
1. Positive states mean feeling great, feeling grateful, feeling proud, feeling alive.
2. Positive traits mean character, and also things like talents and interests that we
consider to be positive characters, along with grit, self-control, kindness, sense of
humor.
3. Positive institutions indicate our schools, our religious places, our sports teams,
our cultural traditions, the things that really support us in feeling good and being
good.
Wikipedia says, “Positive emotions are concerned with being content with one’s past,
being happy in the present, and having hope for the future. Positive individual traits focus
on one’s strengths and virtues. Finally, positive institutions are based on strengths to
better a community of people.”
Positive psychologists study the strengths, virtues, and talents that play a vital part in the
successful functioning and flourishing of individuals and communities. Christopher
Peterson, a founder of the positive psychology movement and the author of A Primer in
Positive Psychology, explained in 2008:
Its value is to complement and extend the problem-focused psychology that has been
dominant for many decades.
Beware, at any point, positive psychology does not advise ignoring the problems that
people face. It also does not try to negate other areas of psychology that strive to treat
mental health issues like depression, anxiety, bipolar, or personality disorders.
Carl Jung On A Happy Life
History of Milestones In Positive Psychology (PP)

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Some consider William James to be “America’s first positive psychologist” (Taylor,
2001). In his presidential address to the APA in 1906, James raised the question of why
some people were able to utilize their resources to their fullest capacity and others were
not.
Fifty years from James’ presidential address, the term “positive psychology” first
appeared in the last chapter of Abraham Maslow’s book Motivation and Personality
(1954). The chapter was titled “Toward a Positive Psychology.” Maslow wrote:
The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative than on the positive
side; it has revealed to us much about man’s shortcomings, his illnesses, his sins, but little
about his potentialities, his virtues, his achievable aspirations, or his full psychological
height. It is as if psychology had voluntarily restricted itself to only half its rightful
jurisdiction, and that the darker, meaner half.
— Maslow, 1954
Carl Rogers On A Good Life
The story of Positive Psychology (PP) in America begins long prior to the modern
movement called PP. Humanist psychologists were the first psychologists who focused on
the positive side of people – their innate goodness and natural tendency toward the self-
actualization of their potentials. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow were the leading figures
in this movement.
— Paul T. P. Wong, The International Handbook of Positive Psychology, 2022
1954: The term “positive psychology” was first used by psychologist Abraham
Maslow in his 1954 book Motivation and Personality, to describe his emphasis on
creativity and self-actualization.

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1998: In 1998, Martin Seligman was elected the president of the American
Psychological Association, and he made Positive Psychology the theme of his term.
In the first sentence of his book Authentic Happiness, Seligman wrote: “…for the
last half-century psychology has been consumed with a single topic only — mental
illness.” Today, Seligman is widely regarded as the Father of Modern Positive
Psychology.
1999: The first Positive Psychology Summit took place in 1999.
2000: Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi define positive psychology as
“a science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive
institutions.”
2002: The First International Conference on Positive Psychology held. Seligman
publishes his bestseller Authentic Happiness: Using the new positive psychology to
realize your potential for lasting fulfillment.
2004: Seligman and Peterson publish Human Strengths: A Classification Manual.
2006: The Happiness 101 course by Tal Ben-Shahar at Harvard University
became wildly popular.
2009: The first World Congress on Positive Psychology held in Philadelphia.
2011: Positive Psychology 2.0 by Paul T. P. Wong, which identifies the four pillars of
the good life as meaning, virtue, resilience, and well-being, all shaped by culture.
2020: Martin Seligman was named the #1 academic influencer in the field of
psychology (2010-2020) in a recently published list.
Source: Positive Minds International
10 Key Findings From Positive Psychology
The following 10 pivotal findings from positive psychology are:

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1. Most people declare themselves to be happy and are actually happy.
2. Happy people make good things happen. And happiness is a reason for good things
in life and a precursor to success and good outcomes.
3. Politically, conservatives are happier than liberals.
4. Most people are resilient and can bounce back quite well from adversities.
5. Happiness, good relationships, and strengths of character shield against the harmful
effects of failures and setbacks.
6. Religious people are happier and cope better with stress as compared to non-
religious people.
7. The effect of money on wellbeing peters out beyond a point, and then more money
doesn’t get more happiness. But money can buy happiness if spent on others
(prosocial spending).
8. For a satisfying life, a life of meaning (eudaimonia) outdoes a life of pleasure
(hedonism).
9. Good days are marked by a feeling of autonomy, competency, and connection to
others.
10. The principles of a good life can be learned and taught.
Why do we need positive psychology?
Throughout history, traditional psychology mostly dealt with identifying and treating
human illnesses. It focuses largely on reducing defective emotions and actions, while
generally ignoring the positive and best behavior.
In contrast, the goal of positive psychology is to diagnose and develop the positive aspects
of life, like the human strengths and virtues that make life worth living. It focuses on
measuring the facets of human life that lead to happiness, fulfillment, and flourishing.
Its attention and resources target the study of positive human traits like hope, wisdom,
gratitude, creativity, kindness, courage, spirituality, love, resilience, and grit.
While traditional psychology tends to focus on the dysfunction and abnormalities of
human behavior, positive psychology centers around helping people thrive.
Away from an exclusive emphasis on distress, illness, and dysfunction, positive
psychology moves the area of focus to wellbeing, health, and optimum functioning.
The central point in positive psychology is this pursuit of happiness, satisfaction, and
wellbeing, which its practitioners hold as worthy as the study of the negative mental
health conditions in traditional psychology.
We believe that a psychology of positive human functioning will arise that achieves a
scientific understanding and effective interventions to build thriving in individuals, families,
and communities.
— Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Martin Seligman On The Aim of Positive Psychology
Positive psychology strictly adheres to science-validated perspectives on living a happy
and positive life. It stands in stark contrast to the positive thinking movement popularized
by Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking) and Rhonda Byrne (Law of
Attraction).
The field keenly observes and explores how people, institutions, and communities
flourish. It bases itself on the idea that the absence of illness is not equivalent to a joyful
and fulfilling life.
Positive psychology does not intend to replace traditional psychology but strives to work
side-by-side with traditional psychology, trying to find out what wellbeing is in terms of
living a good life.
Positive psychology is not about fake happiness, telling people to smile it up while
denying the existence of hard times. What positive psychology informs us is that
when we face challenges, we can wield our weapons from its armory of the positive
interventions.
We can learn what makes us more resilient, gritty, and hopeful, and cultivate
responses which enable us to meet adversity with mindfulness and equanimity.
The wisdom of positive psychology lies in using our strengths and resources
gathered from our experiences to push through the tough times and grow from
them. It tries to uncover why a life lived merely around pleasure and positive
emotions isn’t a fulfilling one.
Finally, it is an empirical science, meaning it is based on observations.
A life lived well consists of elements other than those which allow us merely to survive,
and those other elements are what the science of positive psychology seeks to understand
and spread.
Definitions of Positive Psychology

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Here is how some experts in the field define positive psychology:
Positive psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and
communities to thrive. The field is founded on the belief that people want to lead
meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance
their experiences of love, work, and play.
— The Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania
Positive psychology is not a self-help movement or a re-packaging of “the power of positive
thinking.” It is not American-style “happy-ology,” and it is not a passing fad. Positive
Psychology is a science that brings the many virtues of science … to bear on the question of
how and when people flourish.
— Robert Biswas-Diener, 2008
Positive psychology is the scientific study of human flourishing and an applied approach to
optimal functioning. It has also been defined as the study of the strengths and virtues that
enable individuals, communities, and organizations to thrive.
Positive psychology is the opportunity to change the happiness of the world.
— Acacia Parks, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Hiram College and Chief Scientific
Advisor at Happify
Positive psychology is all about the study of what’s right with people.
— Alex Linley, co-author of Adolescence Life Satisfaction
Positive psychology is exactly the study of what goes right in people’s lives.
— Kathryn Britton, Speaker, Coach, and Teacher of Positive Psychology
Positive psychology is the science of happiness. More specifically, positive psychology is
about focusing on what works … on love, happiness, strength, and virtues.
— Tal Ben-Shahar, Founder at Happiness Studies Academy, Former lecturer at Harvard
Positive psychology is a way of looking at things … in a strengths-based way. We begin to
look at people and ourselves from the perspective of their and our best qualities, so that our
behaviors, our feelings, our thinking is curious, fair-minded, grateful.
— Ryan Niemiec, Education Director of the VIA Institute on Character
Positive psychology looks at what works well with people, what makes people happy, what
makes people flourish, what makes people resilient, what makes people have great
relationships, and what makes people find meaning in their lives.
— Lisa Sansom, Executive Director at Queen’s University and Positive Interventionist

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Positive psychology is the scientific study of wellbeing or the scientific study of what makes
life worth living. It is the possibility of giving language to a huge range of the best of human
experience.
— Piers Worth, Associate Professor (the local title is “Reader”) in Psychology
Positive psychology is the study of how to bring out the best in people and organizations, in
spite of the dark side of life. I believe the best way to achieve the objective of our
technology is to increase the dark side of human existence. So if we want to optimize
wellbeing, we have to learn to manage the upside of the dark side, and the dark side of the
bright side.
— Paul T. P. Wong, Founder, and President of the International Network On Personal
Meaning
Positive psychology is the study of positive states and positive traits and positive institutions
that support these two.
— Angela Duckworth, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Psychology at
the University of Pennsylvania
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25 Positive Psychology Terms
A glossary of twenty-five important terms used frequently in positive psychology:
1. Strength: A positive trait or quality of character considered morally good and valued
for itself as well as for promoting individual and social wellbeing. Worldwide, the
strengths most associated with satisfaction in life are hope, zest, gratitude, and love.
Researchers call these strengths of the heart.
2. Virtue: A character trait that makes it possible for people to pursue worthwhile goals
and is beneficial to one’s psychological health.
3. Flourishing: Living optimally and striving for wellbeing in terms of positive
emotions, pleasure, engagement, good relationships, meaning and purpose, and
accomplishments. Filled with vitality and functioning well in personal and social life.
People who flourish score high on emotional, social, and psychological well-being, and
low on mental illness.
4. Languishing: A state of emptiness, stagnation, quiet despair, absence of purpose in
life, lack of mental health; a languishing person shows ennui, apathy, listlessness, and loss
of interest in life.
5. Subjective Well-Being (SWB): Involves life satisfaction, the presence of positive
affect, and the relative absence of negative affect. Associated with hedonic happiness.

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6. Psychological Well-Being: includes Self-Acceptance, Personal Growth, Purpose,
Autonomy, Positive relations, and Mastery.
7. Pleasant Life: The “good” life where people are happy, content, and fulfilled.
8. Engaged Life: Happiness focused on involvement in activities, the ability to express
talent, strengths, and purpose.
9. Meaningful Life: Happiness derived from going beyond self-interests, like religious
community, charity, or political cause. Connection to something “larger than the self.”
10. Positive relationships: The ability to form and maintain supportive, warm, and
trusting relationships with others.
11. Positive Affect: Refers to emotions such as cheerfulness, joy, contentment, and
happiness. Negative Affect: Refers to emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, guilt, and
disgust.
12. Autonomy: the belief that we are reasonably in control of what happens to us (rather
than others, fate, or luck being in total charge).
13. Self-Acceptance: the ability to like and accept most things about ourselves.
14. Self-Determination Theory (SDT): States that wellbeing and happiness result
from the fulfillment of three basic psychological needs: Autonomy, Competence, and
Relatedness (close connections to others).
15. Broaden-and-Build Theory: Describes how positive emotions open up our
thinking and actions to new possibilities, and how this expansion can help build well-
being. Proposed by Barbara Fredrickson.
16. Savouring: The capacity to attend to, appreciate, and enhance positive experiences
in life.
17. Resilience: Characterized by good outcomes, despite serious threats to adaptation or
development. “Maintenance, recovery, or improvement in mental/physical health
following a challenge.”
18. Post-traumatic Growth (PTG): Experiencing an increased appreciation of life,
etc. following trauma. Overcome challenges of belief in personal invulnerability,
perception of a meaningful world, and the view of ourselves as positive.
19. Affective Forecasting: People consistently overestimate their emotional reactions
to future events.
20. Maximizing: Getting or trying to get the best possible option in any situation.
Sufficing: Getting what they need, but settling for something that isn’t the best, but still
gets the job done.

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21. Hedonic Treadmill: The belief that people are doomed to a certain level of
happiness. People will experience “positive affects” but will later return to an average level
of happiness.
22. The Good Life: A combination of three elements: connections to others (as love,
altruism, forgiveness, spirituality), positive individual traits (as honesty, playfulness,
creativity, courage, humility), and life regulation qualities (a sense of individuality or
autonomy, healthy self-control, wisdom).
23. Love: According to Barbara Fredrickson, “Love is a momentary upwelling of three
tightly interwoven events: first, a sharing of one or more positive emotions between you
and another; second, a synchrony between your and the other person’s biochemistry
and behaviors; and third, a reflected motive to invest in each other’s well-being that
brings mutual care.” According to the triangular theory of love, it consists of three
essential components: passion, intimacy, and commitment.
24. Gratitude: A sense of thankfulness and happiness in response to receiving a gift,
either a tangible benefit given by someone or a fortunate coincidence.
25. Meaning (Transcendence): The three needs for meaning are purpose, value, and
self-efficacy.
Learn More About Positive Psychology
Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes us flourish, what is going
right in our lives, and what good things we are into when we are happy. It was introduced
to the world by Dr. Martin Seligman in 1998.
Read this excellent chapter by Dr. Happy, that is, Edward Diener: Happiness: The Science
of Subjective Well-Being.
Steal The 10 Secret Happiness Hacks For You From Authentic Science!
Bookmark these 5 Habits of Happiness Backed by Science to get five clear and practical
keys to happiness in life.
Did you know people with a positive mindset have 6 characteristics: MOGRAH: 1.
Mindfulness 2. Optimism 3. Gratitude 4. Resilience 5. Acceptance 6. Honesty? Learn
what your most friends wouldn’t know about How To Cultivate A Positive Mindset.
If you’re new to positive psychology, then you must own this excellent book by Sonja
Lyubomirsky, where she tells us how to build a fulfilling and contented life, how to check
our levels of subjective well-being, and how to create our happiness — all based on
authentic research. Catch the book summary here: The How of Happiness.
Hard-To-Believe-Fact: As a lecturer at Harvard University, Tal Ben-Shahar created the
most popular course in Harvard University’s history: Positive Psychology 1504!

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A quote by Brené Brown finds a place here because we normally assume that vulnerable
people can’t be happy; but that idea is plain wrong as she proves in her The Power of
Vulnerability.
We normally link happiness and positivity with the extroverted nature and hold that
extroverts are happier people. But Susan Cain, who features here, argues otherwise in her
international bestseller Quiet. Watch her TED talk that still stands today as one of the
most viewed of all time.
Did your wish ever manifest as your reality? If your wish had been realized, then this was
a self-fulfilling prophecy in psychology. The law of attraction (LoA) was built around this
concept.
Dr. Barbara Fredrickson gave the world the Broaden-And-Build Theory (BBT) of Positive
Emotions. The BBT suggests building up positive emotions will tend to broaden our
creative openness, understanding, and behavior. For example, joy makes us want to play,
curiosity makes us want to explore.
What is Flow? According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, people are at their optimal level of
happiness when they are in a state of “flow.” This is a state of complete immersion –
mentally, physically, and emotionally. During flow, people are so engrossed in their
activities, they fail to notice even hunger and time. People in flow are less concerned with
external rewards; they do the activity out of sheer pleasure. Find out how to achieve the
“flow” state of optimal happiness.
If ‘you’re loving this’ and are want to own a few great books based on positive psychology,
then check this out: 50 Best Books For Happiness and Positivity.
PERMA Theory of Wellbeing
PERMA is an acronym that stands for the five core elements of happiness and wellbeing
proposed by Martin Seligman: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning,
Accomplishment.

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PERMA Theory of Wellbeing (Source: Authentic Happiness)
P – Positive Emotions
To have feelings of joy, pleasure, and comfort. Such positive emotions allow one to
succeed and flourish in what they focus on and change their mindset to serve their highest
good.
While we can not be happy all the time, we can make sure we often experience positive
emotions such as pleasure, happiness, contentment, peace, joy, and inspiration.
E – Engagement
When we are fully engaged in a task or project, we experience a state of flow: a mental
state in which we lose our sense of time, we lose focus of our sense of self, and we can not
observe things outside the task at hand in the present moment.
Engagement closely identifies with the act of creation, but one can also experience it when
playing sports, spending time with friends, or working on attention-grabbing projects. We
have a greater chance of being engaged when we work from our positive character
strengths, as outlined in the VIA-CSV.
R – Relationships
Humans are social beings, and good social relationships are at the core of our well-being.
The strongest predictor of our happiness is the time we spend with people we care about
and who care about us.
Most of our life experience revolves around other people. And research has shown that
having a robust social support network reduces the risks of stress and depression, cuts
down death rates, and improves health in terms of better self-care and lower self-neglect.
Building positive and supportive relationships take time and hard work, and they only
form when we make active efforts to connect with others. So. commit to spending
meaningful time with a friend or family member regularly.

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M – Meaning
We are not here on earth only to eat, work, play, have children, and die. We are here for
more. And that is finding the actual purpose of our existence.
Finding the meaning of our life is vital to our overall sense of wellbeing. Meaning looks at
our sense of purpose and path in life, being connected to something greater than our
selfish motivations and ambitions.
Those who say they have more meaningful lives also say they are relatively happy and
content with their lives as a whole.
Find out How To Find The Meaning of Your Life?
A – Accomplishment
There is no question that a feeling of achievement or accomplishment gives us great
satisfaction. Achieving our goals from both an external point of validation and an internal
sense of success is a crucial driver of happiness.
However, if you feel your life revolves mostly around achievements and success, and the
rest of your life is out of balance, then you might do well by pulling back and focusing on
the other elements of the PERMA Model.
Find out what the Cross-Cultural Comparison of The PERMA Model of Wellbeing says.
Seligman’s TED Talk On Positive Psychology
The new era of positive psychology | Martin Seligman
Martin Seligman, the founding father of positive psychology, in his 2004 TED Talk says:
The first happy life is the pleasant life. This is a life in which you have as much positive
emotion as you possibly can, and the skills to amplify it. The second is a life of engagement:
a life in your work, your parenting, your love, your leisure; time stops for you. That’s what
Aristotle was talking about. And third, the meaningful life.
The “Hamburger” Model of Happiness
Tal Ben-Shahar first conceived the “Hamburger” Model of Happiness when he sat down
to eat four burgers after winning the Israeli National Squash Championship in 1986. He
later developed this model while at Harvard, from where he graduated in philosophy and
psychology, and later, did his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior.
The “hamburger” model represents four different hamburgers and how they relate to how
happy a person is.

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1. Rat-Racer: Eats The Vegetarian Burger
It is a healthy but not tasty burger. It relates to people who only know pain and
discomfort as the path to future happiness. All they want is future unhappiness, and
sacrifice all present moments of joy for that.
The problem is that such people begin to believe happiness is something that we can only
achieve in the future. They live according to the principle of present-pain for future-profit
and renounce the present joys to benefit in the future.
But once the future arrives, it mostly doesn’t look like what they expected it to look like.
Meanwhile, this person is still too busy to enjoy the moment and pushes away the joys
even farther into the future.
Their lives have become a rat race. A rat race is an endless, self-defeating, or pointless
pursuit. They live in a constant struggle for survival and the pursuit of profit at the
expense of the joys and pleasures of life today.
2. Hedonist: Eats The Junk Food Burger
It is a tasty but unhealthy burger. It relates to people who only know pleasure as the only
path to happiness. They want to be happy now at the cost of future unhappiness.
When people get asked what a happy life means to them, they often think of a life full of
joy and devoid of pain. These are the hedonists – who live only in the moment and worry
little about future consequences.

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To understand this, suppose you ate your favorite food every time. Can you enjoy the
experience of eating the same food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for weeks on end?
Instead, why not ask yourself how long it would take you to get sick of it?
Similarly, what would happen if your life was always about pleasure? You would utterly
fail to distinguish one pleasurable activity from the other. Such a life would soon become
empty and stale.
3. Nihilist: Eats The Worst Burger
It is a tasteless and unhealthy burger, and obviously, the worst kind. It relates to people
who believe their lives are pointless and can never be happy. So, they are always miserable
and demoralized, having lost all hope of happiness.
A phenomenon called “learned helplessness” shows how easy it is to learn you have no
control over your own life and that every effort of yours will go futile. When you ask
yourself why you would eat this kind of burger, the only explanation you can give is that
your life is pretty pointless.
You give up the present and the future, both. You spend time thinking about what could
go wrong in the future as well as ruminating over what things went wrong in your past
life.
Ben-Shahar describes this desperate place as “nihilism,” but fortunately, we can turn
around learned helplessness into Learned Optimism.
4. Happiest: Eats The Ideal Burger
It is a healthy and tasty burger. It applies to people who know how to be happy in the
present, as well as in the future. It represents those who have reached fulfillment and
purpose in their life.
It is a place where you can enjoy a healthy dose of self-indulgence, a bit of fun, and a lot of
good food.
It sounds simple, but there are two crucial points:
First, take a moment to rethink your personal definition of happiness, and be
careful if you think you want to experience pure bliss for the rest of your days.
Leading psychiatrist Dr. Raj Persaud suggests that we really should aim for nothing
more than “mild contentment,” and that’s about as good as it gets.
Second, ask yourself, does your definition of happiness include activities as well as
feelings? If not, rethink your definition. If you want to be happy, then you have to do
things that create meaning and purpose in your life.
How to Be Happier – Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD

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The paradox is that when we accept our feelings — when we give ourselves permission to
be human and experience painful emotions — we are more likely to open ourselves up to
positive emotions.
— Tal Ben-Shahar
VIA-CSV Directory of Positive Psychology
To counteract the traditional focus of psychology on diseases, Martin Seligman (Father of
Modern Positive Psychology), and Christopher Peterson, standardized the principles of
positive psychology in the book Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and
Classification.
The Values In Action (VIA) classification of Character Strengths And Virtues (CSV) is
Positive Psychology’s counterpart to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM) used in traditional psychology and psychiatry.
Just as the DSM, presently in its 5th version called DSM-5, identifies and classifies
psychiatric disorders, the CSV details and classifies the various human strengths that help
people thrive.
The VIA-CSV allows people to pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses of character and
learn how to work on them. The VIA-CSV identifies the 24 character strengths, organized
under 6 overarching virtues — Wisdom and Knowledge, Courage, Humanity, Justice,
Temperance, and Transcendence. It consists of 240 questions.
Download VIA Classification of Character Strengths and Virtues (Right-click &
Save link as..)
Criticism of Positive Psychology
Positive psychology has its critics and detractors.
Lazarus (2003) claimed that positive psychologists “attack the psychology of the
past to create the illusion that what they offer is new and different.”
James Coyne has also been critical of PP, particularly some of its interventions
(Coyne, 2010).
Barbara Ehrenreich (2010) argued that pressuring people to be happy can cause
more harm than good, and her claims get support from recent research.
Barbara Oettingen’s findings suggest that some types of positive thinking predict
maladaptive outcomes.
Wong & Roy (2018) offer a comprehensive critique of positive psychology in
Critique of positive psychology and positive interventions. The second author, Roy,
is the founder of The Happiness Blog.
PP 2.0 (Second Wave Positive Psychology or PP 2.0)

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Psychology preoccupied itself with the negative (the thesis). Positive psychology (now
referred to as PP 1.0 or First Wave Positive Psychology) challenged it by focusing on the
positive (the antithesis).
Second Wave Positive Psychology (PP 2.0), a concept proposed by Paul T. P. Wong,
2011, suggested that we should focus on both the negative and the positive aspects of
human existence, as both can result in the same positive outcomes. In doing so, PP 2.0
united Psychology and PP 1.0 by incorporating aspects of both into a new position that
transcended and extended the original viewpoints (Mills, 2000).
PP 2.0 is distinguished by two elements:
1. Existential positive psychology, with suffering as the foundation for happiness and
well-being, and
2. Indigenous psychology, with the Yin-Yang concept as an Asian perspective on well-
being.
Positive psychology 2.0 is also an attempt to counter-challenge the critics of positive
psychology, as it integrates PP 1.0 with humanistic-existential psychology.
What separates PP 2.0 from PP1.0 is not just the identification of positive potentials in
negative emotions, but also an important emphasis on humanistic values, the dark side of
human existence, and dialectical principles (Ivtzan et al , 2015; Wong, 2011).
To know what PP2.0 is about, watch Itai Ivtzan and Tim Lomas share their findings from
the new second wave positive psychology research, including the unexpected benefits of
embracing the darker side of life:
Positive Psychology 2.0 - new ideas for happier living
5 Online Courses (MOOCs) On Happiness
These are the best courses on happiness and wellbeing:
1. The Science of Well-Being by Yale University
2. The Science of Happiness by Berkeley University of California
3. Positive Psychology Course by Tal Ben-Shahar at Harvard
4. A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment by the Indian School of Business
5. Positive Psychology by Barbara Fredrickson, University of North Carolina
6. Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP) by The Flourishing Center
If you’re interested in increasing your wellbeing, you can find ways to apply positive
psychological interventions online at the University of Pennsylvania’s site Authentic
Happiness and Positive Psychology Center.
Final Words

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Everyone’s life has both highs and lows. Positive psychology believes life is more than just
avoiding or undoing the troubles that come with the lows. Its main premise is this: The
good things about life are as important as the bad ones, and therefore deserve similar
attention from the science of psychology.
Finally, the 5 takeaways from the Science of Wellbeing:
1. Simple pleasure and hedonism are not the best paths to well-being.
2. Happiness or positive emotions are not the only criteria of well-being.
3. A stress-free life with no challenges is not the most desirable life.
4. Trying to suppress negative emotions does not eliminate them.
5. Positive relationships, love, emotional bonds, virtues, good character, self-
transcendence, a sense of meaning, and purpose in life are all important for well-
being.
Take a look at the 50 Greatest Positive Psychology Quotes.
FAQs
What are the elements of positive psychology?
According to Martin Seligman, the five elements of flourishing are Positive emotions,
Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and purpose, and Accomplishment (PERMA).
Why is positive psychology important?
There are many advantages of practicing positive psychology, such as gaining grit,
reinforcing resilience, building strong relationships, and cultivating an optimistic outlook
on life. Research in the field of positive psychology shows gratitude, forgiveness, altruism,
social interaction, and compassion are all important values to living our best lives.
What is the main focus of positive psychology?
The main focus of positive psychology is the study of the good life or the positive aspects
of human existence that make life worthwhile. Positive psychology is concerned with
eudaimonia, that is, a life of flourishing.
• • •
Author Bio: Written and reviewed by Sandip Roy—a medical doctor, psychology writer,
and happiness researcher. Founder and Chief Editor of The Happiness Blog. Writes
popular science articles on happiness, positive psychology, and related topics.
• Our story: Happiness Project